Happy Art Journaling :)

I've not played in my art journal for a long time and Saturday morning saw me just needing the relaxation that comes from playing with paper, paint and stitch.

I'd painted my pages in blues the night before, then decided to tear some of it away!

I had quite a bit of stamped and painted tissue paper on my desk after taking one of Jane Davies' online courses (highly recommended!!) so decided to add some to my pages.  The leaves are a hand carved stamp.

I cut some more leaves then stitched them to a partial page using my sewing machine (I LoVe doing this!!).

A while ago I bought some lovely old wooden printing blocks and used the 'g' (just because I love the font!) to add some more texture to the page

It all made for a happy Saturday :)

a spot of knitting and felting

To get myself back into creative mode over the Christmas holidays I did a spot of knitting, helped along by a lovely selection of wool in John Lewis' sale!  I'm not one for knitting clothes, I like small projects that don't take too much stitching up, so I got out one of my favourite knitting pattern books -

There's just something about knitting - the feel of the wool, the texture of the 'knit', the regularity of the action of knitting.  An occupational therapist once told me that all these things are good for your mental health so knitting is good for you!

I intend to crochet some pebbles (the pattern is in the same book) in matching wool so I can use my little knitted pots in my classroom as a colour sorting activity and a counting activity :)

These 'almost owls' are also heading for my classroom.  I knitted up a rectangular shape, invented some wingtype shapes then put them in the washing machine to create felted owls.  They're just waiting for stuffing and features to be added now before they, hopefully, star in some reading books for the children.  I'm going to put them around the house and garden, photograph them and write them into a story - at least, that's the idea.  I teach in a special needs school and reading books that don't rely on the current trend of 'sounding out' words are hard to come by.

I finally finished my summer project from a couple of years ago!  This was a very straightforward pattern to knit and I couldn't work out why I'd not finished it, until I discovered it was because I'd run out of wool!  After another happy trip to John Lewis I knitted up the pocket, crocheted the seams together (in retrospect it would have been better to stitch them but crocheting's easier!) and stuck it in the washing machine with the owls for the felting process.  This isn't a project heading for school lol!  It's mine :)

Happy New Year!

I got my creative juices flowing over the Christmas hols by doing a bit of knitting, which is now waiting to go in the washing machine to be felted before becoming a couple of owls...hopefully!  I then started on a project  I've wanted to do for a while ...

... creating a collage style lampshade!  I really want to make one for the lounge but decided to 'practice' on my bedside lamp first!

I started by taking the shade apart and using the inner plastic bit as a template I cut out some newspaper then  added layers of paper using a white pva glue.  I added stitching, a zip and lace and generally had a ball!  The tricky bit was fixing it all together but despite the odd wobble I'm very pleased with it.

May this year be full of many good things!